Touring progress

Sunday

Jan 20, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Robert Nemeth

Accompanied by City Manager Michael V. O’Brien, I spent a couple of hours last week going around the city looking at areas of ongoing or planned economic development. It was a rewarding experience, one that could turn an old skeptic like me into a cautious optimist.

On our way to Gateway Park, we drove by Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s new sports facility on Park Avenue. It’s a fabulous complex that enhances WPI’s national reputation and is an asset to the city. Gateway Park itself is a major triumph. What was once the site of polluted brownfields is now the hub of research and science, with related business ventures and a large parking facility.

Typical of the change is a large complex on Prescott Street, now shared by WPI, the local headquarters of Siemens and an incubator for small biomedical ventures. There’s another sizable building awaiting completion on Grove Street; it will serve as a new dormitory for WPI. An additional hotel in the vicinity of the Marriot Courtyard is being contemplated by a developer. “The demand is there,” Mr. O’Brien notes.

The former vocational school at Salisbury and Grove streets is empty. “It will be converted into 60 apartments, with work starting in the spring,” Mr. O’Brien explains. The former Boys and Girls Club at Lincoln Square is spoken for by WPI as the site of its business department and an incubator for start-up businesses.

Driving by the abandoned courthouse on North Main Street, the city manager explains: “It will be secured and cleaned up by the state. Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, a former Worcester mayor, is working to take care of the liability issues before the place can be turned over to a developer. Tim has been instrumental in much of our progress.”

The once bankrupt Crowne Plaza Hotel property on North Main Street is now owned by MCPHS, formerly known as Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, another major player in the city’s revitalization. The Boston-based school has about 1,100 undergraduate and graduate students and 300 faculty and staff in Worcester, but it intends to double the number of students in the next five or six years. To accommodate that growth, the university entered into an agreement to acquire 29 condominium units at North High Gardens on Salisbury Street, and has preleased 26 microloft units that will be part of redevelopment of two underutilized downtown office building at 371 and 379 Main St.

The latest acquisition by MCPHS was the next stop on our progress tour. The university recently acquired two large buildings for $2.9 million on 3.5 acres at Belmont and Lincoln streets that once were home to Morgan Construction Co. The aim is to turn the 90,000-square-foot area into rental apartments for graduate students, faculty and staff. If that is not feasible, the buildings will be razed to make way for new construction. “The school has invested more than $350 million in the city since opening its Worcester campus,” Mr. O’Brien notes. “They’ve created a snowball effect. Small businesses and property owners see the promise of growth and are encouraged to make investments of their own.”

Smartly spruced up as the regional headquarters of Harvard-Pilgrim Health Care, the building at 427 Main St. makes Harrington Corner an attractive downtown landmark. We swing by the new skating rink on the Common. “This succeeded beyond my expectation,” the city manager says. “More than 7,000 people have skated on the oval so far.” We drive by the new local headquarters of Unum, a global insurance company, and an adjacent 860-car parking garage. A new cancer treatment center for St. Vincent Hospital is just around the corner. There is a new transportation hub and bus terminal. The nearby DCU Center is awaiting $22 million in renovations.

Traveling along recently extended Front Street, a short roadway that reconnects Main Street with Washington Square, takes us to the City Square 2 area that was obtained by the investment subsidiary of Hanover Insurance when Frederick Eppinger decided to rescue the faltering redevelopment project. “Conversations continue relative to locating a new hotel and 350 units of market-rate apartments here,” Mr. O’Brien says. On two sides of Washington Square, offices will be built to provide support services for nearby enterprises.

An ambitious “Theatre District Master Plan” by the Worcester Business Development Corp. will support “a vibrant entertainment and cultural environment” in the Main Street, Federal Street and Front Street neighborhoods. “This place you know well is expected to become the downtown home of Quinsigamond Community College,” Mr. O’Brien says as we pass the former Telegram & Gazette building. Just around the corner on Portland Street, the Mayo Co. spent an estimated $50 million to clean up storefronts and convert a former automobile dealership and garage into apartments. There is more on the list, and we make several more stops.

The success of a community always depends on the leadership of individuals who have the vision and skills to forge ahead. Worcester is fortunate to have such people right now: Charlie Monahan, president of MCPHS; Dennis Berkey, president of WPI; and Fred Eppinger, CEO of Hanover Insurance. They make all the difference.

“I’m pleased with the results,” Mr. O’Brien says. “But our work never stops.”